The Fire and The Thief
by Lamby
Summary: An English mutant teenager is on the run in France when disaster in the form of her uncontrolable firepower strikes. Her unlikely rescuer is only one Remy LeBeau...


Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men world or Remy le Beau, also known as Gambit, and am making no money from his use nor the use of the X-men movie- verse. I do own Blaze and any other original characters, so don't you dare steal them! Thank you :-)  
  
A/N: After completing my Dark Trilogy and the short sequel L'Ange de Morte, I had the choice of either doing something constructive with my time, like trying to find a job or re-writing my original fic Heart and Daggers into an extended DVD edition novel, or messing about some more with my X-Men OC Blaze. Blaze has won so far this morning, so I'm going back in time for a one-off chapter on how Blaze met a certain Gambit, and how they really weren't over impressed with each other in the beginning. I suppose I could have fitted it in as a flashback in Darkest Hearts, but it's a little long for that. Oh and I'm too lazy to translate every bit of speech into French and back again, and I don't know how Gambit's accent would work in French, so I've not bothered with either for those bits. Anyway, enjoy and don't forget to review.  
  
The Fire and The Thief  
  
She awoke ill, dizzy, exhausted and disorientated. The sixteen year old had no idea where she was, the unfamiliar stains on the ceiling, the coarseness of the blankets on the bed, the smell of an apartment that most definitely belonged to a male. What the hell was going on? And why was she wearing very little besides a rather mangy trench coat?  
  
A noise across the room startled her, a window being grated open. She turned her head stiffly, not able to sit up. A young man, in his late teens with a mop of unruly brown hair and dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans that clung to muscles... Blaze didn't recognise him at all. Last she remembered she'd been leaving the bar, walking down a Parisian alleyway, when three idiots had tried to grab her... She closed her eyes tightly as her extraordinary memory filed in the details, the smell of charred flesh, and the screams of the dying. So, she had used her mutant powers. She had killed again just when she thought she had her ability to create fire under control. But that didn't explain who the lad here was.  
  
"You awake?" He asked in French. "How you feeling?"  
  
"Where am I and who the hell are you?" She asked in perfect French with a slight Parisian accent. She put coldness into her tone to cover her fear. She didn't know what he wanted from her, what he might have already taken, but she had no defence from him right now and she didn't like it.  
  
"You're safe, mutant. You killed the three men who attacked you four nights ago, but I got to you before the police could. They won't find you here."  
  
"You've not answered my questions." She told him in a matter of fact tone. He shook his head and walked away from the bed.  
  
"I'm not going to either. I don't trust people just because I've saved their lives. Get better and get the hell out of my flat, and we'll call it even." He threw a pile of women's clothes at her. "And I'd like my coat back too."  
  
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Blaze didn't get better quickly. She didn't dare leave the flat either; it seemed there were sirens running past the building too often for it to be as safe as her unlikely rescuer claimed. He didn't speak to her much as he went about his normal life, whatever that was. Often he had associates round, talking mysteriously as packages were exchanged on both sides or pieces of paper were passed between them. Nobody seemed the slightest bit interested that the lad had a strange teenage girl living in his flat. Well, except for the girls he brought back on occasion. They were usually not best impressed.  
  
Before the latest one had even slammed the door in anger, Blaze's rescuer turned on her, shouting in French.  
  
"Are you still here! I go out everyday, leave the door open, and everyday I come back expecting you to have left, and you still haven't! You planning to be a leach forever or something?"  
  
"What if I like it here? Its never exactly boring is it? Why don't you just go get yourself another rat-infested love-nest and leave me alone?" She sniped back, loving the way French sounded so evil on her tongue when she was mad. The young man crossed the room quickly, pinning Blaze against the wall with a hand to her throat, red pupils furious against black eyes.  
  
"You got one week. Then I don't care how weak you still are, you're out of here." He let go and stalked out after the girl, leaving Blaze to slump to the floor.  
  
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The week was three quarters through when her roommate went out one night and didn't come back. The sun was coming up when three of the most frequent visitors to the flat came in without knocking to find Blaze sat on the windowsill, leaning out into the fresh air and watching the sunrise. One of them addressed her as the others started systematically destroying everything in sight.  
  
"You better make yourself scare miss." He spoke quickly, his French dialect not one Blaze was familiar with. "Remy's not coming back. The police have him cornered across town. The boys and I don't plan on leaving anything here for them to find after they arrest him and search this dump."  
  
"You're not going to help him?" Blaze asked incredulously. She might not like the guy especially, but for a criminal he was a decent individual. And these people who now trashed his home were supposed to be his friends, weren't they? The man shook his head, not even ashamed, and went back to trashing the place. "That your car?" She asked nodding out the window to the sedate burgundy estate sat crookedly on the curb. Again the man nodded, and Blaze smiled. Time to pay her rent.  
  
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The five patrol cars screeched into the yard where the young thief was cornered, eyes narrow, and rucksack of stolen goods over his shoulder. Sirens blazing and lights flashing, Gambit knew even if he could get past them, he was still screwed. How the hell could he out run a load of cars? His hand grasped a playing card that glowed with orange energy. If they were going to catch him, he'd go down fighting.  
  
Over the sirens and the shouts of men and dogs, the roar of a rough- sounding car engine came around the corner. The car stopped behind the cops and the passenger side door was flung open. It was the redhead! What the heck was she doing here? She screamed out over the top of the hubbub in English.  
  
"Get your damned backside over here Frenchy! I'm not here for the good of my health!"  
  
Gambit let his card fly into the nearest car, the explosion it caused throwing back the cops and allowing him an escape route. He jumped the car smoothly, landing on his feet on the bonnet and taking off again with a mid- air roll to dive into the waiting getaway car as the redhead pulled away. Only when he had pulled the car door shut did he turn to correct her.  
  
"I ain't French."  
  
"Oh even better," Blaze replied also in English, sarcasm rich in her voice. "A..." The gears crunched over her words as she fought to change gear. "...American!"  
  
"The name's Gambit." He offered as the police began to follow them.  
  
"Your delightful friends who are systematically trashing the flat called you Remy." She replied, eyes on the cars behind them as she sped through the Paris streets.  
  
"Real name's Remy le Beau." He filled in reluctantly.  
  
"Blaze." The girl supplied, not looking at her passenger as she took a sharp left then a right. He nodded, knowing he would get no more out of her. He dumped the rucksack on the back seat of the car, turning to get a good look at their pursuers who were, believe it or not, falling behind.  
  
"You got a licence to drive d'car?" He asked, not entirely teasing. Blaze replied in a mildly confused voice.  
  
"Do you?"  
  
"Several. Take a left, I got a friend down here you can drop me off at, an' he'll make you an ID so you can get away."  
  
"Fair enough." The English girl put all her slight weight into turning the wheel down an ominous looking street.  
  
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"Hey, kid, at least try and smile for me? You got such a pretty face..." Blaze scowled harder at the American ID forger as he took her picture with an instant camera. At the back of the room Gambit leant against the wall drinking a beer. Blaze stalked off as the photographer nodded that he was done with her, went to the fridge to get her own alcohol seeing as it didn't look as if Gambit was going to fetch her one.  
  
"You surprise me Remy, she doesn't seem like your type." The overweight older man teased his young associate as he went to a computer and started punching in details. The Cajun scowled, damn right the miserable bitch wasn't his type, but he did owe her now. The other male, whose name was Mickey, continued to speak, but addressed Blaze instead of Gambit, "You English then kid? Name a place near where you were born, not too near mind. And how old are you?"  
  
"I wasn't born in England." She offered, sitting down on a dining chair that seemed to have lost its friends and the table it belonged with. "But how about Chester?"  
  
"Hey it's your passport, don't matter to me where you say you came from. And your age?" Mickey didn't look up from his computer screen, but Remy was watching her carefully. Would he know if she lied?  
  
"You'll have to say I'm seventeen so I can have a driving license." Blaze was pragmatic.  
  
"True enough kid." Mickey answered, rattling the keyboard as his chubby fingers typed in a name for her. "You're now called Melanie Beckett..."  
  
"Thanks Ami." Remy offered his friend something discreetly in a shake of hands. Payment? Thought Blaze. She looked back to where Gambit had been stood, where his rucksack lay half open on the floor.  
  
"Hum, robbing jewellery? Not very original..." Gambit and Mickey both looked at Blaze, and a strange thought crossed the Cajun's mind. He walked towards her as he spoke.  
  
"You want somethin, Petite?" He nodded at the bag. "Take one t'ing, kinda a thank you from Gambit..." Behind him Mickey folded his arms across his chest, an interested smile on his face.  
  
Blaze knelt by the bag, rifling through the contents carefully. There were some spectacular pieces here. Huge chokers with streams of diamonds, anklets made of sapphires and emeralds. This wasn't a small store Gambit had robbed. But one piece caught Blaze's attention. Where tiny flaws or cheap plated metal settings marred other items, this bracelet was pure unsullied gold, the diamond it boasted large and unflawed. It was beautiful.  
  
"This one." She said, as Gambit slammed his beer bottle down on the table in disgust and stalked out of the room. "Hey, he did say anything, right?"  
  
"Well I guess you can take the thief outta the guild, but not the guild outta the thief." Mickey commented slyly. "He was testing you, kid. A thief's gotta know what's worth the effort to steal, a good one anyway."  
  
"Did I pass?" Blaze asked, looking back over her shoulder at the large man.  
  
"Well you picked what's just about the most expensive item in that bag."  
  
"Meaning?" She pried.  
  
"Meaning our Gambit's got to decide if he wants an apprentice. Its against all the ideals he was raised to, all those of the thieves guild to ditch untrained a natural talent..."  
  
Mickey looked like he was going to continue spilling this information that Blaze was so keenly lapping up. But Gambit came back in, a sly smile making him seem much more friendly towards her than he had even been before. He came and crouched on the floor next to her, strange eyes meeting and holding her own.  
  
"You wanna come with me to Berlin? See if you really got the talent for dis work?"  
  
Blaze smiled right back, a smile that lit up her pretty face and put a touch of wickedness in her brown eyes. She shook his extended hand as she spoke.  
  
"Oh I've got the talent. You just got to worry about me showing you up, Remy le Beau." 


End file.
